With Her Back to the Wall?

Layered Information on the Funerary Altar of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Aconia Fabia Paulina (and Related Monuments)

Authors

• Peter Kruschwitz University of Vienna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8427-1056

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71390/arctos.161177

Keywords:

Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, Aconia Fabia Paulina, funerary altar, hidden inscriptions, layered information

Abstract

Revisiting the arrangement, textual design, and spread of information of the four inscribed parts of the well-known funerary altar of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Aconia Fabia Paulina, the author argues that the inscription at the altar’s otherwise undecorated rear, the poem of Paulina, was deliberately designed to preserve private information about the couple and their religious beliefs, but to be hidden from the public eye – arguably by placing the altar’s rear against the wall of the burial space. This argument is backed up (a) by a revision of other inscriptions and sources referring to the couple and their religious agenda in public and private and (b) by consideration of further monumental texts that were inscribed only to be hidden away from the public eye in a similar fashion.

Reviewed publications